Wednesday, May 28, 2008

[Update: This post deals with the difficult issue of racial anger. I've revised it somewhat in light of reader comments below, but I'm still not sure it says what it says accurately and fairly, especially in my efforts to account for common forms of black feelings and behavior. I do think there are common white and common black differences in this area, and I'm trying to spell out, especially, some common and domineering white modes of thought and behavior that often arise during conversations about race with non-white people. Finally, I'll add here that in a post entitled "The Privilege of Politeness" at Angry Black Woman, Naamen Gobert Tilahun says some of things I was trying to say here better than I did.]

Because black people have long had to study white people if they want to be safe and successful, and because white people rarely have to study black people if they want to be safe and successful, whites tend to have a harder time understanding blacks than most blacks do understanding whites.

White people also usually have a hard time realizing that in some ways, black people tend to see the world differently from how they do. Consequently, white people often get confused, dismissive, or frustrated if black people insist that they experience the world differently, and therefore see it differently.

If black people also insist that a historical legacy of mistreatment at the hands of whites also has a lingering effect on how they see the world, things can get so far beyond the range of white ways of seeing the world that they usually change the subject, or throw their hands up and turn away, or even leave the room.

As they do so, over these and other racial disagreements, these white people often say something like, "If you're going to get emotional, then I can't discuss this with you." For white people in such discussions, anger tends to be a dangerous force that blows out the light of reason. They may not realize it (middle-class ones, especially), but white people often insist that such discussions be conducted in their way. Their calm, rational way, that is, and if they're talking to someone raised to discuss "hot topics" in an more emotionally engaged way, they not that way. (And guess who's automatically at an advantage in calm, rational discussions, if they've been raised to discuss controversial issues in a calm, rational way?)

So white people can get confused or fed up in discussions about things that make some black people angry. That's understandable, really, when you realize that whites have been trained to think that the way they see the world is pretty much the normal way--the way everyone else does, unless there's something wrong with them. Unless they're "biased," or "subjective," something that (from a white perspective) being white supposedly doesn't do to a person, and something that being black supposedly does do to a person.

This unconscious presumption of white objectivity, as opposed to supposed non-white subjectivity, is also why white people who talk about racial issues get a lot more attention and credit from white listeners than people of color who say the same damn thing. This is the kind of blindly applied double standard that also happens with supposedly objective male speakers or discussants and supposedly subjective female speakers or discussants.

So because whites tend to be wrapped up this way--in their supposedly objective, ironically racialized perspective--one of the things that they never seem to quite get is collective black anger (which is not to say, by the way, that there are no common forms of collective white anger, such as ill-informed notions about affirmative action). This common white obstinacy became openly apparent when Barack Obama's pastor, Reverend Wright, expressed anger at America, and made an emotional call to God to "damn America" unless it started treating black people better.

Reverend Wright later said things that struck most white folks as so outlandish that Obama finally bowed to pressure by repudiating both the words and the man. The supposedly important connection between Wright and Obama is old news by now (not that some white people are going to let Wright and his words go away), but many white people still wonder—if Wright said things like that in church, then why did Obama attend that church for twenty years? I think it's probably because in that church, Obama cut Reverend Wright some slack.

I think that if Obama was in church on that particular day, he and the other people there would've understood that Wright wasn't actually asking God to damn America. Instead, one of a black reverend's functions in such moments, in many black churches, where people aren't so pent up and repressed that they've pretty much separated their emotional life from their religious life (if they have a religious life)--in those kinds of moments, what Wright may have been doing was helping his congregation express some of its anger. (Or maybe not--this is conjecture on my part.)

And as I understand it, yes, black people still do have a lot to feel angry about, and no, many of them won’t just bury or try to forget that anger like white people wish they would. Sometimes they let it out, which is probably healthy, and sometimes when they do so, they say things they wouldn’t say at other times.

White people often forgive their own friends or family members for saying things in anger that they wouldn't say otherwise. Why can't they do the same for black people?

I think they can't because it is "black anger," which as I wrote above, white people don’t understand, and sometimes don’t want to face up to, especially if they feel like a target for that anger. But white people also find it difficult to overlook black anger in a collective sense because white anger, when it's expressed, is more contained, more localized, and, from a white perspective, more individualized.

Most white people don't have a collective sense of themselves as a group nearly as much as many black people do (thanks largely to whites grouping blacks together for several centuries now, in order to treat them accordingly). So while white people get angry at work, or on the road, or in their homes or during a baseball game, they rarely get angry together as a racial group. That's because white solidarity has been atomized into supposedly non-white individuality. And also, after all, considering that as a group, whites are still by and large on top in American society, what do whites realitically have to get angry together over, as a racial group?

Again, black people understand white people better than the other way around, and one of the things they usually know is what I'm basically trying to say here--that whites don't understand collective black anger. White people don't understand the causes that justify it, so they don't understand most of what gets said, nor the ways in which it gets said. And finally, if that anger gets expressed in a manner or "tone" that differs from their own, they're apt to turn away, unless the discussion can be conducted in their preferred manner, instead of someone else's.

47 comments:

Interesting topic. It's tailor made for one of my pro-Rev. Wright rants but I'll spare you and go back to one of my "Damn You Barack" rants.

Right off, I'll beg to differ from you. White collective anger is normalized and deemed automatically justified. That's what Obama contributed (or placated) to that notion in Philadelphia in his race speech.

I mean, we've had the Angry White Male, a white collective (which isn't exclusive to men), featured as sought after, need-to-be-recognized voting bloc for years. It was White collective anger dressed in red, white and blue that insisted on the Iraq war.

Back to Obama and his race speech, his comments about "White resentment" are the perfect illustration of just how privileged White collective anger is. After disparaging "Black anger" typical derogatory connotation attached, Obama appealed for us to "understand" White resentment as he noted how "[White] anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition."

He justified White anger/resentment, if only to explain it, by saying:

"...when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time."

I'd welcome Obama or anyone to tell me just what White fears over "Black crime" is about when most-all crime is intra-racial making Black people the ones with the most to fear about Black crime. So even White crime is privileged. Ain't that a b*tch?

Yeah, that's the same thing I said when Obama said this:

"...to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist... widens the racial divide and blocks the path to understanding."

Notably absent was all that personal responsibility and coalition building rhetoric that accompanied Obama's "Black anger" spiel:"[Black] anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity within the African-American community in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change."

That right there, my friend, is White Privilege on steroids. Well, actually, it's a rather typical narrative. Somehow, Black people and our "anger management" issues are the reasons why "real change" on America's racial/domestic front has been elusive. So, in a round-a-bout way, Macon, Obama seemed to be talking about the same thing you mentioned here: how Whites will leave the room when the race conversation and, more specifically/importantly, the conversation regarding the lived American reality for other Americans isn't to their liking.

Obama's narrative is problematic to me because it places the onus on Black people for Whites "leaving the room." White Americans have no responsibility, apparently. I guess it's because they don't "need" to forge alliances and perfect excuse for why we're supposed to overlook the fact that Obama's beloved White "victims" direct their anger and frustration over their economic and social mobility prospects towards "people who aren't like them" instead of the "real culprits" (Obama's term) -- the corporations and politicians who exploit them.

So, in this grand narrative (Obama is definitely not the only one who espouses it), not only are Black people responsible for... excuse me "complicit" in the problems with "our own conditions" but somehow it's on us (Black people) to convince our White middle/working-class brethren that they are often lead/vote against their interests in the name of White-skin solidarity. Whiteness - the other "identity" politics.

The problem with that is how it paints poor/working class Whites as "victims" and victims only. For some reason, the language for their situation isn't about how they are "complicit" in their own demise via voting against their own economic interests. No. That kind of inward finger pointing is reserved for Black people, e.g.

The reality of it is: poor/working /middle class Whites have been both "victims" and "perpetrators" (i.e. willing participants) in the oppression of the "OTHER" with Black people being the proverbial "paradigmatic" other. White Americans have seen it in their interests to "resent" what they perceive as "African-Americans getting an advantage" over them or receiving something (welfare) they don't "deserve" along with the notions that "they (Hispanics immigrants, e.g.) are taking their jobs" -- ideas apparently based on a sense of White first entitlement. History records how White Americans in general (in large numbers, at least) have collectively held fast to the very "zero sum gain" mentality Obama talked about and have responded accordingly via curiously racialized anti-affirmative action sentiments.

The racialized views on welfare, however, seem most instructive to me when looking at the reality-context surrounding anti-affirmative action sentiments. That reality being that there are all kinds of "affirmative action" going on be it Dim White Kids or the ones who beefed affirmative action (.e.g Univ. of Michigan):"It turns out that 4,000 applicants were ultimately granted admission to the university [of Michigan in 1995]. Alas, [Jennifer] Gratz, who had a good SAT score and grade-point average, was not one of them. In fact, more than 1,500 students with grade-point averages and SAT scores lower than Gratz's got into the school. Those 1,500 students [mostly White], by the way, were not beneficiaries of affirmative action...

Gratz apparently was okay with that, because she didn't kick up a fuss about the[m]... 1,500 students with lower scores and grades who got in ahead of her. But then she learned about other students with lower scores and grades who got in because the university awarded them 20 points on the 150-point scale.

... Gratz, who is white, could graciously lose out to white students with lower grade-point averages and test scores. But losing out to similarly situated African Americans and Latinos was just too much to take. Second place to them? Pass the smelling salts. So she sued."

I want to know what was "so outlandish" and, more importantly, why whatever those "outlandish" statements drew such outrage when there is hardly a whisper of outrage over John McCain's "pastor problems" -- i.e. Hagee's and Parsley's blatantly bigoted statements that have basically been given a pass by the "American public" when compared to Wright's statements which, IMO, are objectively less "outlandish."

The problem I have with Wright's critics and their straw-man tactics insisting that Wright's comment about AIDS was "outlandish" is this underlying attitude that "our government would never do that" (Medical Apartheid anyone?) AND, worst, the attitude that speaking such a truth or thinking such a thought is "debilitating" or "conditioning of inferiority" and, therefore, never be spoken/thought.

Indeed, the idea that "the U.S. gov't was wrong" is just too difficult for some people to say; hence, the way American foreign policy "wrongs" (see Iraq) are coined as "strategic blunders." The idea assumes that we always mean well for ourselves and especially other people (Iraqis, e.g.) who find themselves on the sh*t-end side of our foreign policy.

It's a really curious narrative. Oh, that "conditioning of inferiority" stuff comes from this column:

"Instead of a shining city on a hill, Wright imagined an America conceived in the original sin of slavery, swaddled in racism and bent even now on strafing innocent people in their overseas homeland."

Well, I had no idea the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis were responsible for 9/11 or otherwise deserved to be killed in the American led "nation building" project. I also had no idea that "founding fathers" made sure race slavery was suspended during the country's new-born stage. I guess America's race-slavery saw its beginning and end during Pres. Lincoln's lifetime.

Anyway, the author reasons (poorly) ,like a number of people, that:

"Wright's [ideas] reflects the thinking of the past millennium that when propagated to younger generations comes off as self-limiting prophecies struggling everlastingly to fulfill themselves. The rap of the retired minister must grate on the ears of a man like Obama. Imprinted offshore largely by a white extended family, the one-half-African offspring totally escaped the psychic conditioning of inferiority so common among African-American children born in mainland USA."

Anyway, I will keep looking for this Black island that seems to have captured people's imagination. I'm trying to figure out how the "psychic conditioning" that supposedly goes on in the Black community is insular and restricted to what's said and what goes on in the Black community as if none of it is influenced, impacted or touched by anything outside of it.

Yeah, I guess that's why Black almost all the jobs African-Americans have are with businesses owned by African-Americans; almost all the schools are essentially ran/owned by African-Americans and surely all of the governmental social/economic policies affecting the Black community were created by African-Americans. Surely the whole psychology of what it means to be Black in America is derived from a segregated, no contact with White America, e.g., construct.

The moral to this story is: White people aren't the only one's who "refuse to listen to black anger" and pretend like it that hinders African-Americans. Rev. Wright is the anti-thesis to that bs. On another blog, someone suggested Wright's AIDS "paranoia" encourages African-Americans to avoid testing and participating in medical research. Well, Wright apparently has a lot of "anger" over the AIDS issue because he's facilitated AIDS testings for people in his community in the face of a Katrina-like public/gov't response to the AIDS crisis in the Black community.

Simply, it doesn't take a preacher for Black youth to see the obvious difference in the value society places on their lives...

Your comments on Obama's talk are, as I said about your similar comments on it before, perspicacious. It's a shame he has to placate white voters by pathologizing blackness, and that his speech gets as much credit as it does in liberal places. OTOH, despite the terribly imbalanced framework you describe that it operated within, it reflected a level of sophistication and insight into current racial dynamics far beyond that expressed by any other politician that I know of. I may be too optimistic here, but I'm hoping that Obama will do less pandering to white sensibilities if and when he achieves the presidency.

Re Wright's subsequent comments, I used outlandish in the sense of "highly unconventional" and "strikingly unfamiliar." Surely you'd agree they were that, even though, yes, they do reflect accurately well-founded, widespread black suspicions and fears.

As for your second question, on the differing receptions of Wright and Hagee's comments, I'll just send you to this post, rather than repeat what I said there.

"Re Wright's subsequent comments, I used outlandish in the sense of "highly unconventional" and "strikingly unfamiliar." Surely you'd agree they were that..."

When you appeal for agreement, you have to be clear on what you're presenting for agreement. You'd have to say what was "highly unconventional" and/or "strikingly unfamiliar."

The "conventional" line after Wright's Q&A at the National Press Club was that Wright said nothing new and, in fact, repeated what he said before. With the contrast Father Pfleger's recent comments AND apology, the things that were considered "outlandish" were (1) the fact that Wright didn't apologize (for what, I don't know) and (2) the media created and instigated fight with the claim that Wright said Obama was a "politician", which he is, and is accountable to a different audience/constituency than Wright.

None of Wright's antics (mannerisms and style, etc.) should distract from the facts regarding what was actually said. So, again, I'd like to know what makes whatever Wright said so "outlandish."

No code speak. No reliance on how almost "everyone" reacted to Wright. None of that pinpoints anything and, more importantly, the reasoning why whatever Wright said even when/if off-base is considered "outlandish."

Here's another less than accurate statement:

Reverend Wright, expressed anger at America, and made an emotional call to God to damn America unless it started treating black people better.

ACTUAL QUOTE:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no...

(1) God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people

(2) God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.

(3) God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.

It's also not accurate to say Rev. Wright made a "call" for God to damn America. The part where he said, "That’s in the Bible" should be a clue. The rhetorical chord running through the GD America and 9/11 sermons is the idea "unconventional" or "unfamiliar" idea that actions produce reactions/consequences; whatsoever you sow, you shall also reap.

The Malcolm X speech famous for the "chickens coming home to roost" line is titled God's Judgment of White America.

True, he could just pack up his campaign and go back to a wealthy speaking and writing career. But if he wants to get to the White House, I think he does have to. Also, standing up there himself, being perceived as a successful, leader-like black man, and then as a black president, are actions that in themselves counteract perceptions of black pathology, more than anything he could say on the topic.

Re your further points on Wright, I've already explained why his comments were taken as "outlandish." I don't know how you think I'm using "code speech" to say that. Using the words God, and damn, and America in the same sentence is already "strikingly unfamiliar" to white Americans, if not, perhaps, to most black Americans, and connecting AIDS to government efforts to spread it is even more so (and if that's not EXACTLY what Wright did in mentioning AIDS and the government, please don't correct me again--I think you get the point I'm making here--tying the two together is outlandish to most Americans, however justified such a connection may be, and however much it accurately reflects justifiable black suspicion). Perhaps I wasn't clear on who found his statements outlandish.

Thanks for the further clarifications on Wright--if I write about him again, I'll refer back to them, and I look forward to reading the writings on your blog about them.

I don't see whites as calm, rational or focused in their anger at all. In fact it's just the opposite.

White people were willing to believe George Bush about Iraq mainly because they people their were brown and talked funny. There is nothing calm, rational or focused about it. No trying to understand their culture, religion, way of life, anything. Just kill them all and sort out what's left after we get the oil.

Most municipal decisions in ANY city, county or state in the union are based on the desires and whims of white people despite the long term effects. Despite the mortgage crisis and houses sitting empty, entire strip malls boarded up, whites continue to build more homes and more malls in farther and farther outlying areas against all sense. It doesn't matter where I'm from. If you're reading this, it's true of where you live. Urban sprawl has become not only a nuisance but a danger to the way we live in the way of deforestation but whites in their efforts to get away from "dangerous" blacks continue to move further and further out. And what do black folks do? Well, if they white folks thought there was danger in the neighborhood, they should move too and they follow the white folks out to the burbs not realizing THEY were the danger the white folks were trying to get away from.

There is nothing focused, calm, or rational about whites refusal to see sense and to base so many decisions on RACE alone, only to deny that racial disparities or issues even exist. I know that's the point of your blog, but you miss the mark on Rev. Wright (over and over again) and you really missed the mark on this bit about white anger.

But you are right about so much else, it's difficult to be very hard on you. It's nice to see someone try.

Using the words God, and damn, and America in the same sentence is already "strikingly unfamiliar" to white Americans, if not, perhaps, to most black Americans

Macon, please provide the basis for your claim and more importantly... address the issue instead of trying to avoid it. I did not ask you about how Rev. Wright's comments played among Americans, in general, Black or White. I asked you to explain your choice of words which are, apparently, your own feelings as well.

I'd just like to reconcile the irony inherent. The title of your thread is: "[the] stuff white people do [is] refuse to listen to black anger."

Really, it's pretty hard to break that mold when the very thing that's been characterized as an expression of Black anger is labeled as "outlandish" and, as a point of discussion, you appeal to me to "agree" that it was "outlandish", "strikingly unfamiliar", "highly unconventional" or whatever avoidance language you choose to use.

Again, you appealed to me to agree that Wright's statements were "outlandish", remember?

Re Wright's subsequent comments, I used outlandish in the sense of "highly unconventional" and "strikingly unfamiliar." Surely you'd agree they were that...

Obviously, you want me to agree because those are your thoughts about that. But, let me be clear: whatever I think about Wright's statements, however I'd choose to characterize them, obviously differ from the way you've insisted on characterizing them.

"Highly unconventional"... TO WHOM? In what way? I bet the way I'd used the term (unconventional) would be different from the way you used it and defined it here, implicitly or otherwise.

connecting AIDS to government efforts to spread it is even more so

Is even more so what?? What's the problem with it? Why do you treat the issue differently than you have the statements Hagee made?

Notice how you are personally invested in making the point -- for which you desire agreement -- that Wright's statements were "outlandish" and, as you said in the double-standard thread, "ridiculous."

My question here is not about the factual claim, per se, but about the very "highly" emotional response to it that is largely absent, even from you, when Hagee et al make the types of claims they do.

Of course, that was my original question which remains unanswered. That is unless you're acknowledging that you hold Wright to that double-standard -- the only thing that would make you link to the Hagee thread an actual answer to my question to YOU.

I asked and I am asking you to elaborate on what you've had to say. You have positioned yourself as someone who personally feels Wright's statements were "outlandish." Indeed, your very response makes you a critic, at least with regard to those specific statements.

Now just come out with it. Is the U.S. gov't some holy and sacred and honorable institution that to dare say or suggest that the gov't spread AIDS is tantamount to high treason or sacrilege? Because that's the uncurrent in all that "even more so" rhetoric let alone the irony of "refusing to listen to black anger."

Think Katrina. Think the crack epidemic. Think about how "anger", if that's what it is, is expressed.

If Wright's statements were made in a fit of understandable, "well founded" rage/anger then where is the understanding?

White people often forgive their own friends or family members for saying things in anger that they wouldn't say otherwise. Why can't they do the same for black people?

But that's strikingly at odds with you appealing to me to agree that Wright's statements were "outlandish" -- evidence that you found the statements personally so "outlandish" and "ridiculous" to "forgive" them or view them through the prism of "listening to black anger" which, by your own intent with this thread, suggest that people should cur Rev. Wright some slack.

I'm merely trying to be clear on what you're saying both for me to understand what you're saying and for you to understand what you're saying.

My point is: are we "refusing to listen to black anger" with this desire to denounce Wright's statements so strongly as "outlandish" in a way via tone, emphasis, etc. that's notably absent when it comes to Hagee.

Also, it really doesn't do anything but make my point about Obama for you to invoke what "most" Black people thought about Wright's statements. Exactly how you know what "most" Black people felt, I don't know because I do know that what I've gathered from "most" Black folks is something different from how Whites tended to react to the Wright's statements.

The accuracy of the AIDS thing and definitely the God damn America thing (note those 3 very explicit points as opposed to framing it with the one you did) really wasn't the primary issue among "most" Black folks I know. I think Roland Martin's (CNN contributor and Black radio host) treatment of the two issues gives insight to the way those two issues played out in African-American circles.

Some Black folks cut him slack on the AIDS thing, especially the 30% said to believe the "conspiracy theory" vs. other less than compelling theories, IMO. However, Roland Martin noted how his radio audience was split, basically 50/50, when asked about how Wright's NPC "performance" was received in the Black community.

And if I had to come up with a word that typifies how "most" Black folks viewed Wright's statements in the Q&A (and most people are clear in specifying that it was the Q&A) it would be: "embarrassing"

Another theme would be betrayal. Both things that hardly put an emphasis on whether Wright was right about the spread of AIDS which, again, is a convenient straw-man.

There is nothing focused, calm, or rational about whites refusal to see sense and to base so many decisions on RACE alone, only to deny that racial disparities or issues even exist.

I didn't say there was. The post is about discussion styles between individuals within moments of interpersonal communication. I certainly agree, of course, that there's so much about common white emotion and behavior that's anything but rational.

Anonymous, could you explain where or how you think I've "missed the boat" on Wright?

nquest, I'm finding it difficult to discuss this with you in a comments thread. I think we agree with each other more than you seem to think we do, though I do appreciate your adjustments in accuracy in what I've said.

You wrote:

I did not ask you about how Rev. Wright's comments played among Americans, in general, Black or White. I asked you to explain your choice of words which are, apparently, your own feelings as well.

But they're not my own feelings as well. I meant to address the feelings of Americans in general, by saying that white Americans find Wright's comments outlandish, and that black Americans receive them in more complicated ways. I agree, though, that my implications about black sentiment in this regard are overly broad--I didn't know what you've provided here about varied black opinions on the matter.

My point is: are we "refusing to listen to black anger" with this desire to denounce Wright's statements so strongly as "outlandish" in a way via tone, emphasis, etc. that's notably absent when it comes to Hagee.

No, "we" are not, if by "we" you mean you and I. White America, though, does denounce them that way, and it does refuse to listen to black anger when it does so.And as I said before, I explained in an earlier post the problem I too have with white America's not denouncing Hagee (and by extension McCain) in the same way that it's done so with Wright (and by extension Obama). I think you're misreading me, or I'm miswriting--I personally wouldn't use the word outlandish to describe Wright's comments. I meant, in the post and here in the comments, to say that Obama was forced to renounce Wright's comments, and then Wright himself, because white Americans in general see then as outlandish, thereby refusing to acknowledge black anger as they do so.

"Highly unconventional"... TO WHOM? In what way?

To most white folks. In the sense of the ways I defined "outlandish" above.

Again, you appealed to me to agree that Wright's statements were "outlandish", remember?

Again, what I meant to write was an appeal to you to see them as outlandish to white America. I hope that's clear to you now.

My question here is not about the factual claim, per se, but about the very "highly" emotional response to it that is largely absent, even from you, when Hagee et al make the types of claims they do.

Did you read the earlier post that I sent you to on this? I'm incensed, and what I'm incensed about is the way that Wright's words get attached to Obama, but Hagee's don't to McCain. I'm not focused on the veracity of what either Wright or Hagee said. My blog is about the ongoing power of whiteness, and in this case, about how it allows whites to stand as individuals, relatively free of the words of their associates in comparison to the lumping-together that whiteness does to non-whites and the words of their associates. I'm interested in clarifying that phenomenon, that racist double standard.

I do know that what I've gathered from "most" Black folks is something different from how Whites tended to react to the Wright's statements.

Agreed--that's my sense of it too.

Now just come out with it. Is the U.S. gov't some holy and sacred and honorable institution that to dare say or suggest that the gov't spread AIDS is tantamount to high treason or sacrilege?

Hell no, and I never said so. I have my doubts that it spread AIDS in an effort to destroy the black community, but I can see why, given the government's horrendous and continuing disregard and abuse for black people, many blacks would find such a claim worthy of investigation.

Noting that putting God + America + Damn in the same sentence is something Whites don't like says little in the way of explaining why putting those things in the same sentence evokes the response it does or why the double-standard exist.

What is it about God and country in the mind of White folks that make Wright's statement so unnerving even to the point where fair-minded people like you can only recall or would rather emphasize the idea that Wright was "calling on God to damn America" for its historic anti-Black racism.

Tavis Smiley (among others) made the obvious and compelling connection between those 3 points Wright made in "damning" America and MLK's noted "triple evils" of racism, economic exploitation via no-conscience capitialism and militarism and MLK's own pending "call" for God's judgment on America.

"Reverend Wright later said things that struck nearly everyone as so outlandish that Obama finally had to repudiate both the words and the man."

I've been reading this blog for like a week now ( I was sent here by racialicious) and I like to read your opinion, Macon. It puts things in perspective.

But anyway, i've appreciated the comments, but nquest, why are you asking what was perceived as so "outlandish" about the Wright comments. Now, I didn't personally find them outlandish, but it's understandable why someone else, someone white, would. You mean to tell me a black man, perceived to be "angry" and "bitter" (which is probably slightly true if he witness such heinous acts by white people in the mid 20th century), saying "Goddamn America" (given without much else context) wouldn't cause the white populous to be "shocked and appalled?" Really? Sure it would. And even if they did get the context, would that change their opinion of Wright being "outlandish," "off-base," and/or even "racist?" I watch a lot of news networks and most of them (meaning white news anchors), liberal or conservative, saw Wright this way. So the answer is probably no. And I have a feeling that that is macon's point. Black anger is so not accepted by anyone white because, frankly, they can't process it.

PS Good work, Macon. I would really like to direct my white friends to this site. In fact, i probably will.

you wrote: White people also usually have a hard time realizing that black people don't see the world the same ways that they do, so white people often get confused, dismissive, or frustrated when black people insist that they experience the world differently, and therefore see it differently.

- There are some things I would like to ask you, help me understanding white Americans. White America celebrates Columbus Day and therefore celebrate the start of genocide. They celebrate the values America was founded on and therefore celebrate an illusion. America never has been what white people want her to see. There has never been at any point in white American history the ideal of respect, freedom and equality. Nonetheless a white collective can act that way as if exactly this illusion is true. White Americans can call plantations and antebellum houses a "great heritage". No German with something like a brain would call concentration camps a great heritage. So this is a serious question: What is going on in your schools? What are students, children taught about history?

you wrote: White people don't have a collective sense of themselves as a group as much as black people do (thanks largely to whites grouping blacks together for several centuries now, in order to treat them accordingly). So while white people get angry at work, or on the road, or in their homes or during a baseball game, they rarely get angry together as a racial group.

- Whites definitely do have a collective sense of themselves as a group. Think about it, how institutional racism works. There is a collective solidarity among whites, otherwise it wouldn't work. This collective white solidarity also made the invasion of Iraq possible. White collective anger/white collective fear and cluelessness, which lead to an collective attack. Whites have this collective sense of themselves as a group, because normally a single white entering a room full of Black people will feel some sort of uncomfortable, a feeling s/he doesn't have when entering a room full of whites. And what do you think: Life without parole for the officers who killed Sean Bell. This would disrupt white collective solidarity. Because also in cases of police shootings whites demonstrate their collective sense of themselves as a group: Collective silence. Because action would threaten their white status quo.

You wrote: Reverend Wright later said things that struck nearly everyone as so outlandish that Obama finally had to repudiate both the words and the man. The supposedly important connection between Wright and Obama is old news by now (not that white people are going to let Wright and his words go away), but many white people still wonder

- Can white Americans truly be so stupid? That they take all things in their life with some sort of illusion and that they never think critically about any issues? I don't think so. I believe that this again has to do with white collective group-think: An alleged outside threat leads to a collective white anger and faked outrage which forced Obama to distance himself from remarks of Rev. Wright. I think it is the fear of Black solidarity and whites will try all to remain in power. And I admit that I would like to see an Obama saying 'f*ck you'll whites and your racism'.

Byrd, a former KKK-member endorsed Obama. Byrd is a senator and also a superdelegate, according to the news I read. Where is the white outrage that somebody like this can hold such an important office? The sense of a white collective works pretty well - white solidarity to remain in power, they are silent together or cry together. Rev. Wright and his statements are not the real issues here and also not if whites can or cannot understand "black anger" - whatever this is supposed to be. My thoughts on this topic.

If it's so understandable then an explanation of why it is perceived/received as "outlandish" should be easy. Merely saying that it's self-evident (an excuse to avoid an explanation) doesn't say why it is.

Simply saying "they're White, he's Black and angry", "you know angry Black men scare White people" is not an explanation. My understanding is that this blog is to explore "the stuff white people do" not just say "that's what white people do when they hear or see "angry Black man."

I ask what evokes the response. I figured there would and should be more depth than "he's an angry Black guy."

Kshortie16, you're simply seeing an argument that's not there. I'm not arguing for White Americans to "change their opinion of Wright" though I have insisted on Macon being accurate and open about his opinion of Wright instead of trying to act like his views are completely detached, like he views Wright in strictly favorable terms when he obviously does not given his "optimism" for Obama.

Back to the point, I've asked why do White Americans have the opinion they do, whether Macon is included or not. Again, I figured there would be more depth or at least a willingness to go into more depth than just rehearsing the "angry Black guy" lines. You seem to think that I'm arguing that I can't believe White Americans can/have responded the way they have and that, frankly, is hilarious especially given what I said in my first post here.

Black anger is so not accepted by anyone white because, frankly, they can't process it.

Once again, the simple question is why? Why is it not accepted? What are the problems with "processing it" and, again, why are the things Wright said seen as so outlandish?

Again, what is it about God and country in the minds of White folks that make Wright's MLK-like "call" for God act in judgment of America that's so offensive. (Note: That's a request for an explanation; a request for "a White guy" (Macon) to explain to me what he feels is so important and sacred about God and country to the very people he has decided to talk about in terms of the way they think about race).

So, what about the way Whites view God and America makes them respond SO DIFFERENTLY when Wright does it while Hagee can talk about God judging American sins via Katrina WHERE PEOPLE WERE HURT (you know, the supposed basis of the offense to Wright's 9/11 sermon) and well, Pat Buchanan, one of those TV news personalities can say "outlandish" things about AIDS and Horowitz-like Whitey briefs and, like Geraldine Ferraro, still have a place and forum to express their views in "acceptable" circles of [White] society:

Take Pat Buchanan, for instance. Despite a litany of offensive, racist and anti-Jewish remarks over the years, Buchanan remains a respected commentator on any number of mainstream news shows and networks, his books sell hundreds of thousands of copies, and rarely if ever has he been denounced by other pundits, or grilled by journalists, the way Farrakhan has been, in both cases.

So, for instance, Buchanan has said that AIDS is nature's retribution for homosexuality; that women are "not endowed by nature" with sufficient ambition or will to succeed in a competitive society like that of the United States; and that the U.S. should annex parts of Canada so as to increase the size of the nation's "white tribe" (because we were becoming insufficiently white at present), among other things.

Most relevant to demonstrating the hypocrisy of the press when it comes to Farrakhan, however, consider what Buchanan has said about Adolf Hitler. When Farrakhan said Hitler had been a "great" military and national leader--albeit a "wicked killer" (which is the part of the quote that normally gets ignored)--he was denounced as an apologist for genocide. Yet, when Buchanan wrote, in 1977, that Hitler had been "an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the great war," a man of "extraordinary gifts," whose "genius" was due to his "intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path," it did nothing to harm his career, and has done nothing in the years since to prevent him from becoming a member of the pundit club in Washington. Nor would he receive the kind of criticism as Farrakhan--at least not lasting criticism--when he wrote in 1990 that survivors of the European Holocaust exaggerated their suffering due to "Holocaust survivor syndrome," and that the gas chambers alleged at Treblinka couldn't have actually killed anyone because they were too inefficient.

No. Just stating the obvious that there is a double-standard and that White Americans do take offense when Wright (or Farrakhan) say something we all know they don't like says nothing about WHY they don't like it and what's behind the dislike especially when there is some hypocrisy on the issue.

Maybe this will help you understand where I'm coming from. The way I analyze things when White Americans, conservatives in particular, insist on that personal responsibility is something lacking in the Black community but when they can objectively be found to be hypocritical or completely dismissive of the type of personal responsibility (i.e. self-help) people like Wright and Farrakhan have championed... then you have to ask what is it really about because it can't be personal responsibility.

Another analogy: Iraq. White Americans can't say they want the Iraqis to practice democracy then get upset when their exercise in democracy doesn't work the way White Americans want.

In both cases, it has to be something other than or something in addition and more prominent to the expressed claim of favoring/advising "personal responsibility" and "democracy." The same goes for the expressed claims of offense.

There is obviously something else at work and a reason why "God + country + angry Black man" are quick-trigger issues for White Americans. Seems to me there is something Whites view as sacred and untouchable about God and country. WHAT IS IT?

jw, you may see different "real issues" at play here, but the ones the post about are those that take place in discussions between white and non-white individuals. Within THAT context, white Americans don't usually have a collective sense of themselves as white--they're just (supposedly) objective, fair-minded individuals.

Yes, of course whites do have a collective mindset, or pysche, or even sub/unconscious in a larger sense, and have had for centuries. That seems obvious (and it is horrendous), so I didn't see a reason to deal with that in the post.

Also, you asked:

"White Americans can call plantations and antebellum houses a 'great heritage'. No German with something like a brain would call concentration camps a great heritage. So this is a serious question: What is going on in your schools? What are students, children taught about history?"

I think you can imagine what they're taught--implicitly, that the white way is the right way, and that "we" should fair-mindedly include acknowledgment of non-white histories and achievements in curricular materials, all the while never, somehow, SEEING the sort of collective white solidarity that you're talking about. And yet, all the while as well, continuing to act and think (again, usually unconsciously) with it as the general, guiding framework.

Re what's going on the schools, I still think James Loewen's book Lies My Teacher Told Me is the best description of the woefully inadequate education/indoctrination American children receive about their country, and about themselves as citizens.

I think Loewen's book about Sundown Town's is particularly relevant here given how "the most segregated hour in America" is heavily implicated with the reaction to Rev. Wright.

One of the apparent "processing" issues comes from what Whites are used to in terms of their churches which reflects a lack of historical knowledge of the difference in the formation of the Black church and White places of worship in America.

Throughout this whole "pastor problem" saga, one of the things that was said but kept a whisper was the White notion of church/religion is supposed to be for everyone; what's allowed in the pulpit and what's not.

Well, we have White America (the collective institution and not necessary many White individuals), past and present, is what we have to thank for a number of Black clergy who never felt they had the luxury to just preach from scripture disconnected from their life outside the church walls.

That might work for White folk and there were/are plenty of Black folks who would rather it be so restricted but that's just a serious cultural difference between Blacks and Whites.

By definition, that doesn't require every Black person and all Black churches to ascribe to the social gospel or Black Liberation Theology. Dr. King had a hell of a time getting Black preachers to stand up but that doesn't nullify or take away from the prominent role the Black church played in the century long civil rights movement and throughout the African-American experience.

They obviously have a collective sense of what is "strikingly unfamiliar" and "highly unconventional" which all revolves around their collective sense of themselves and the presumed universality (aka "the norm") of their worldview.

Beyond that and back on point... I'm having a hard time reconciling Macon's remarks here:

"...despite the terribly imbalanced framework you describe that it operated within, it reflected a level of sophistication and insight into current racial dynamics far beyond that expressed by any other politician that I know of."

... with the idea of being open to listening to Black anger which Obama's remarks demonstrably missed the mark and his insight was terribly lacking or maybe it's the internal contradictions in his post-racial rhetoric (- connotation) that dulls whatever insight in his admittedly dynamic piece of American rhetoric (+ connotation).

I think that the explanation that you are asking for is not as simple as you think it is. I'm pretty sure it would take books, longs ones, to fully explain why white people think the way they do, why they would find such statements "outlandish," and why they can't or won't be bothered with processing black anger.

With that said, i'll guess and say white people find Wright's comments "outlandish" because white people might perceive the comments as being concerned with the "past." Now, what i mean by this is that they might feel that he harbors a grudge based on past injustices. Even more so, they might feel like they, as individuals, are being lumped together as part of the group that committed such atrocities of the past. It's almost as if Wright is personally attacking every single white person in America, which causes these individuals to become defensive and dismissive towards Wright's comments, eventually deeming them "outlandish."

Now, that's my guess because i am not white (I'm black), so i can't speak for white people. I am also a sociology student, so this topic interests me.

My position is that he didn't have to do that to distance himself. He can placate without it. After all, you apparently didn't notice how he "pathologized blackness" in his race speech and you thought highly of it and I believe you felt it was effective.

After the NPC, Obama still could have distance himself without mentioning Farrakhan, without lying about what he didn't notice as a member of Trinity.

And your comments about Obama "standing up there himself"... Well, all I have to say is Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, etc., etc., etc. And what says Obama still won't be pressure to continue what he's started, by pathologizing Blackness, in this campaign?

I really find your remarks as rather curious. In fact, I find them rather out of touch.

There are a number of people saying Obama as president means affirmative action over and there's aways been a history were "successful" Blacks are used to further castigating and pontificate on the supposed pathologies in the Black community.

"I have my doubts that it spread AIDS in an effort to destroy the black community, but I can see why, given the government's horrendous and continuing disregard and abuse for black people, many blacks would find such a claim worthy of investigation."

Certain factions of the US government racist operations (i.e. CONTELPRO) isn't a topic that the mainstream media will ever confirm, or discuss. Investigative reporters are compromised, neutralized and co-opted by the state and their masters. Reporters are more inclined toward covering up the horrid truth than uncovering the hard cold facts. These unpopular facts (and journalists) get tossed under the conspiracy theory bus. Remember Gary Webb ...R.I.P.

Think 911 and the coming quasi-secret North American Union. Think Iraq (weapons of mass destructions?) and Afghanistan (invasion to get that pesky, ultra-evasive, master terrorist, and still unproven bad guy, Bin Laden). Governments lie, and the United States government is the biggest liar in all recorded history.

When was the last time you did a web search on the history of U.S. secret experiments?

My point here, Macon, is that I "don't put anything past" the government's (or certain elements within the government) willingness to do. After all, we do live in a very racist (white supremacist) universe.

Macon, you write: It's a shame he has to placate white voters by pathologizing blackness,

and

Also, standing up there himself, being perceived as a successful, leader-like black man, and then as a black president, are actions that in themselves counteract perceptions of black pathology, more than anything he could say on the topic.

I think both of your statements are quite problematic. They agree with a system of white supremacy and they also agree with white people's sentiment that Black people have to act perfect to "counteract black pathology" (whatever you mean with black pathology).

Blackness is an experience which has a right to be. Black people have a right to be with all their entirety, humanity and dignity. And as everybody else Obama is obliged to respect the humanity of all people and of all citizens of America, because a president is a president of all people and not just white people.White people may act as if they are the only ones with a right to be, they may act as if their problems or 'resentments' are the only ones worth listening to and the may believe that their interpretation and understanding of "God" and religion is the only right one - but this doesn't mean to give white people a pass. It does not mean that it is legitimate to continue the legacy of white supremacy.Within a given system people nonetheless can make choices how to re-act. And Obama definitely can make the choice to also respect Black people and Black people's experience in America. And my personal opinion: I expect a certain backbone from somebody who wants to be the most powerful person on earth and who wants to become a leader of a nation which politics impact the entire world.

This election is not about white people feeling comfortable and being nurtured in their continuation of racism, even if white people want to see it that way. White people have to grow up. It is white supremacy which is wrong and not Blackness. I don't agree that Obama has to pathologize Blackness and there is definitly no need and no place to blame the victims of white supremacy for the ills of ws. This is no kindergarten, even if white Obamaniacs act that way.

And because you individualize 'white anger', I would like to know, which picture is on your mind when you talk about collective Black anger, when your thread is about Rev. Wright's sermon

And your comments about Obama "standing up there himself"... Well, all I have to say is Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice, etc., etc., etc. And what says Obama still won't be pressure to continue what he's started, by pathologizing Blackness, in this campaign?

Yes, of course black leaders can and do work against the interests of most other black people. I mean that the presence of a black president would dispel to some degree the misconceptions and misgivings of many whites about black abilities and capacities--not all, of course, but some. I don't think Obama is some sort of saint, and I agree that he could have done less pathologizing of black people to placate white voters than he did. But given the framework of mainstream discourse regarding race, I still maintain that he has to do some of that in order to get where he is--the entire paradigm pathologizes blackness, and he has to operate to some degree within that framework if he wants to gain the presidency.

Right, there's no guarantee that he won't continue preaching the virtues of "personal responsibility" to blacks as much or more than he's already done so, but I'm hoping that the apparently sincere community-activist orientation of his early career, and of his first book, have stayed with him, and will emerge more fully in his administration's policies. (And btw, regarding his policies overall, I saw much more in those of Kucinich, and then somewhat more in those of Edwards, than I do in Obama's.)

There are a number of people saying Obama as president means affirmative action over and there's aways been a history were "successful" Blacks are used to further castigating and pontificate on the supposed pathologies in the Black community.

Yes, that seems obvious to me.

just me wrote:

My point here, Macon, is that I "don't put anything past" the government's (or certain elements within the government) willingness to do. After all, we do live in a very racist (white supremacist) universe.

I agree (though I'm not sure about the entire universe). I'd also add that we live in a very classist society. As you'd probably agree, race has been and continues to be an incredibly effective tool for propertied elites, and knowing about the nefarious governmental and quasi-governmental activities that you cite doesn't require a web search for me--I'm learning about such things all the time. Have you read, for instance, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? Truly nefarious stuff, and just the tip of the (white?) iceberg.

jw, have you read around much on this blog? You and I are much more in agreement than you seem to think.

This election is not about white people feeling comfortable and being nurtured in their continuation of racism, even if white people want to see it that way. White people have to grow up.

If you'll take the time to read more of my posts, you'll see that a I FULLY agree that white people should grow up. However, for Obama to ask them to do so in the midst of a campaign season, a time in which his opponents continually try to paint him black any way they can without seeming to be racists--for Obama to do that now would turn even more white voters away from him, more than the many who already won't vote for him, no matter what he says or does, simply because "he's black." Right, agreed, he could do less placating, but he's already done more of the "waking up" you ask for than any leader of his stature has in decades. His "race" speech, for instance, was definitely flawed (and nquest has ably spelled out many of its flaws), but that speech did more by way of asking white people to take race seriously than anything any of the other candidates have had to say on the topic.

And because you individualize 'white anger', I would like to know, which picture is on your mind when you talk about collective Black anger, when your thread is about Rev. Wright's sermon.

I try not to individualize white anger--I want to point out how whites do that to each other's anger.

OTOH, I do think that whites act collectively in a more subconscious sense--they just don't consciously realize they're doing so, and the white corporate media don't portray it as some sort of collective white emotion. There ARE portrayals (and often accurate ones) of collective white male feelings, for instance, and of collective rural working-class Southerner feelings, but not of some overall common, simply "white" sentiment.

Black people, in contrast to white people, have been perceived as a collective and treated accordingly, and many of them (though of course not all of them) also act and think and feel more collectively at times in terms of their blackness than white people do in terms of their whiteness. There's much more conscious black solidarity than there is conscious white solidarity (though again, not among ALL black people).

But the black anger I initially meant to address, beginning with the title of this post, is that which gets expressed at a more individual level, between discussants of different races. When black individuals express themselves in ways that strike white individuals as "angry," white individuals tend to act in ways I described in the post--one of many examples, that is, of the "stuff [a lot of] white people do."

They may not realize it (middle-class ones, especially), but white people often insist that discussions be conducted in their way, and not in someone else's way. Their calm, rational way, that is, and not another group or culture's more emotionally engaged way. (And guess who's automatically at an advantage in calm, rational discussions?)

I think it's quite dangerous to make this claim. White people are biased to think that they are rational and calm while non-white people are irrational and emotional.

So many times I've tried to talk about racist portrayals of non-whites in films, and I've been accused of being "oversensitive" and that I need to "calm down". However, I was already calm to begin with, since I've noticed racism for a while, and it's not like some kind of shock to me. It seems like these people are very defensive of accusations of racism, become emotionally charged, and then project that feeling on to the person of colour who is actually pointing out racism in the "here we go again" way.

For example, if I say, "The King Kong film is racist," most white people imagine me with my face flushed, eyes full of anger, ready to punch someone. Their concept of racism is something that is extraordinary and extreme like the KKK, while my concept of racism is that it is systemic, subtle, and pervasive.

Whatever tone you are picking up from text is, thus, what you are superimposing on the text itself and how *you* are hearing it inside your head. [...] Generally, FOCs posts tend to be direct and at times confrontational. Recent studies have shown that women actually tend not to express anger with lexical words in conversation. Women tend to use higher voice pitch to indicate anger while male speakers express anger with lexical information along with threats and attempts at intimidation.Therefore, directness is linked with intimidation and threatening of the interlocutor. Which actually isn't true in writing style. And yet, the sole presence of directness in posts is often perceived as threatening and intimidating especially when these posts confront people with discomforting truths and become cause for introspection that can be quite painful.

People don’t just say “don’t attack me” as a way of getting feminists to back down. They also say it because they have a sense of being attacked. Criticism is not fists, but people really seem to perceive it that way. [...] Women aren’t supposed to criticize, so when they criticize, it’s not just words — the surprise of their criticism feels like fists. And when women of color criticize? Well, then it’s World War III.

Basically, What White People Do: Perceive themselves as "calm" and perceive Non-Whites as "Emotional".

When I write about racism, it could be categorized as "anger" in the sense that I think it is injust, but I'm usually not "angry" in the sense of being "emotional" or "non-rational". Basically, it's more of an intellectual anger, not an emotional anger.

There's nothing wrong with emotional anger in response to racism, but I think in most cases, this is projection.

[White people's] calm, rational way, that is, and not another group or culture's more emotionally engaged way. (And guess who's automatically at an advantage in calm, rational discussions?)

I'm also going to add that this is kind of racist.

Why would white people be at an advantage in calm and rational discussions? Are you suggesting that white people are more rational?

I find that white people are usually not calm and not rational in discussions of race. You talk about the perception that blacks are perceived as "biased" and "subjective" in the next paragraph, and you talk about the assumption of white objectivity, but you are not connecting it with the assumption that whites are "rational" and "calm" and that blacks are "not rational" and "emotional".

When I first heard and read Obama's race speech, I perceived it to be very intellectual, positive, balanced, and uniting all races. However, I then checked some discussion forums, and some white people perceived Obama's speech as angry, negative, confrontational, and divisive along racial lines. This is bizarre! White people have a completely different interpretation of the same speech with respect to 'tone' and purpose.

Wow Macon. Great post and highly informative, so much so that if I were a professor at a black college, depending on the class, I'd make it required reading. Black folks are full of drama laced with humor - which one of the reasons is why Rev. Wright's (and recently, Father Pflegar's) messages of America's racist past and white entitlement was ignored, and the media used short clips to make them look like clowns. Sadly they've also labeled anyone who complains about racism as being racist as a way of ducking responsibility and/or apologies.

Anyway, come visit my blog again. I have some great new posts about politics, racism, and parenting. I'd so appreciate it if you add me to your blog roll too because hardly a soul knows about it.

"the presence of a black president would dispel to some degree the misconceptions and misgivings of many whites about black abilities and capacities"

Macon, you are not listening. As soon as those "misconceptions" about "black abilities" are dispelled the very publicized next-thought is:

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION = OVER

And that's based on the newly formed attitudes about "black abilities." Oh and when I mention affirmative action, I'm not just talking about the policy. I'm talking about all arguments for social change on the racism/racial inequality front.

The new attitude in America:Obama is president = there is no racism.

That aside, your "just being there" idea is even more troubling. I most certainly hope that Obama does more than just be there.

Obligatory King quote:

"[African-Americans] today [are] not struggling for some abstract, vague rights, but for the concrete and prompt improvement in [their] way of life."

So I find it awfully ironic that you favored Kincinich or Edwards over Obama, policy-wise, but figured... Well, I don't know what you were thinking.

One thing is for sure: an Obama presidency that will do less, policy-wise, than what Black people felt they could have gotten out of a White president (Edwards, Kucinich or Clinton) won't make Black people say, "oh, well "we" had our chance, now we have no reason to push for favorable policies for our community." No. Those complaints will still be there and they will fall on deafer ears because Obama was/is "just there."

Hell, White America asked Dr. King "when will you (people) be satisfied" so you that kind of attitude will be strong from 2009 - 2012/16 and especially strong afterwards.

_________________________

Also, I've yet to see you explain why you subscribe to that "have to" nonsense. What do you mean (let's go beyond the rhetoric here) when you say he "entire paradigm pathologizes blackness" and he "has " to operate in it?

What does that mean?

What does that mean when it comes to the urban policies he's proposed with the idea of dealing with issues important to African-Americans in mind? Because he's obliged to "operate" within that "paradigm"... WHAT?? His idea of "Promise Neighborhoods", e.g., HAS TO BE scrapped or revamped to accommodate the "stop looking for a government handout", "pull yourself up by your own bootstrap", "parents need to parent", "your problems are of your own making" ideas that litter the paradigm of Black pathology?

Tell me what good is a Black president and, certainly, what the hell is there to be "hopeful" for if that's what having one will HAVE TO be all about.

I realize it. You start a blog "Stuff white people do". (and btw, its not very useful that you quite often edit your writing)You also tell your readers "I'm a white guy, trying to find out what that means. Especially the "white" part.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. The way you personally perceive issues is based on your experiences etc. The way you write about eg. "Black anger" is also influenced by how you personally think about "Black anger". Ask your white part, why it makes "Black anger" emotional, collective etc., while it makes "white anger" rational, individual etc.Things white people do: They feel entitelt to judge and to label, even if reality contradicts those fictions.

you write: but white people often insist that discussions be conducted in their way, and not in someone else's way. Their calm, rational way, that is, and not another group or culture's more emotionally engaged way.

Restructure, I finally have some time to address the careful points you've made here. I agree that perceptions of calm vs. angry/emotional do depend on where the perceiving is coming from. I'm sure that some of mine are "whiter" than I realize, even though I'm trying to wake up to that.

You wrote,

Why would white people be at an advantage in calm and rational discussions? Are you suggesting that white people are more rational?

No, I'm not. As with all of my posts, what I'm talking about here is how, in America, some (perhaps most) white people have been trained to dicsuss serious issues in an emotionally disengaged way, especially when discussing serious and/or contentious issues with people they're not intimately familiar with.

Some white people are not at that advantage in calm, subdued, "rational" discussions because they come from lower-class backgrounds where getting emotionally demonstrative and shouting and so on are expected. So it's a class thing as well as a race thing. The person at an advantage in a calm, rational discussion is one who's been subtly and thoroughly trained to discuss things that way, be they white or black. So what the post is saying, though not in a way that's quite fine-tuned enough, is that more white Americans are trained in that mode than are African Americans. As you'll recall, I've written about how, for various historical reasons, whites tend to restrain themselves, and I think that tendency is related to interactive discussion styles.

(and btw, its not very useful that you quite often edit your writing)

To my recollection, I've only edited my writing in two ways. One occurs immediately after I post something--mistakes or poorly worded phrases often jump out in that different format, so I sometimes edit accordingly, but that always occurs within 15 or 20 minutes of posting something. The other occurs when someone corrects something I've written and I agree with the correction. In those cases, I indicate with an asterisk leading to a footnote that I've made the change. If I've tripped you up in these or other rewrites, I apologize.

I don't mean to draw such strict dichotomies on this issue. I also don't mean to say that white anger is rational. If I'm reading myself right, what I'm saying is that white discussion styles of serious and/or contentious issues tend to be relatively calm and rational--not that white anger isn't there. If white anger does come out and express itself, the white individual is no longer acting calm and rational.

check out your whiteness. I also could say watch your word

I do check out my whiteness--that's so much of what this blog does for me, and it's only one way I try, every day, to check my whiteness. I also recognize that because of it, I've been trained to act in certain ways, and thus that I reenact those ways all the time.

I do watch my words, and I appreciate how you watch them too. You have caught me enacting common white usages of words that should have been amended, and as you may recall, I've done so in response.

I cannot access the video in "restrain themselves" because I am in Canada. Hulu says, "We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States. [...]" If you want to reach an international audience, use YouTube or Google Video, which are not affiliated with specific cable networks.

From what I can access of "restrain themselves" (i.e., the text), I agree that white males think of themselves as the head and the seat of rationality, while they think of women and non-whites as bodily and emotional. However, that they think this does not actually mean that white males are more rational and that women and non-whites are more emotional. "The Tranquilizer" is quite odd and probably has roots in Christian asceticism, but I do not think that restraining oneself is particularly white in terms of culture.

In terms of racial relations, I would have said that something that minorities of all races have in common is that they "restrain themselves". In your recent post, "believe others consider them trustworthy", you wrote: "Black people have to be careful around white people in all sorts of ways that white people don't have to worry about." This, I think, is an accurate description of how non-whites "restrain themselves" and how whites generally don't have to restrain themselves. They can be and are emotionally expressive because they lack self-consciousness, especially racial self-consciousness.

It is not the case that white people's communication style is "calm and rational" and that other cultures and peoples' communication style is more emotionally engaged. Watch the video again from your eat cottage cheese post. Also note how the white people in the video perceive black people's communication style.

Macon, whites may see themselves as calm and rational the same way they may think that America is a meritocracy, or that they bring democracy to Iraq, you may individualize 'white anger' vs. a collective 'Black anger' and perhaps you are just trying to write a satire about the "calm and rational" way of whites discussing race or you make the mistake that you somehow fantasize. You mentioned the million man march as an example of 'collective Black anger'. In a system of injustice those who are powerful do have other means to demonstrate their collective 'anger' than the not so powerful.It isn't the point if whites are always racially conscious as realizing themselves as white, but they clearly know who belongs "to them" and who "is the other" and whites are working and thinking in terms of collective, as 'covert' as this may be and they don't need mass-ralleys to do so.

You also write: They may not realize it (middle-class ones, especially), but white people often insist that discussions be conducted in their way, and not in someone else's way. Their calm, rational way, that is, and not another group or culture's more emotionally engaged way.

It sucks that you couldn't access the video, Restructure. I do use YouTube and Google whenever I can, especially to avoid commercials, but I've been searching for that video online for a long time, and that's the only copy I've found. If you can find a more acessible version that I can embed in this blog, I'd love to hear about it.

However, that they think this does not actually mean that white males are more rational and that women and non-whites are more emotional. "The Tranquilizer" is quite odd and probably has roots in Christian asceticism, but I do not think that restraining oneself is particularly white in terms of culture.

And why don't you think so? Just, because you don't think so? Yes, Christian asceticism is another source for bodily restraint, as are matters of class distinction and disease control. But anothe source is race, and Ronald Takaki and I aren't the only two who think so. Eddie Murphy, Toni Morrison, and Richard Wright come to mind immediately as people who also think so. Can you cite more convincing sources on this than your personal opinion?

In terms of racial relations, I would have said that something that minorities of all races have in common is that they "restrain themselves".

I didn't because I thought it was clear that when I talk about common white tendencies, I'm not disallowing the possibility of similar tendencies that arise in different circumstances among other groups of people. White folks have a historical legacy of bodily restraint that's specific to them, and that's what the post was about. Yes, other people restrain themselves in other ways, but that seems obvious to me, and also too various to try to account for within one post in the Short Attention Span Blogosphere.

The video in the cottage cheese post is not about communication styles within serious discussions. It's about men bonding with other men, in the corridors and around the water cooler, not in the boardroom, and not at a diversity seminar on racial awareness. In this post, I tried to address common white demands that controversial topics be discussed in their style. I've seen white people walk away from conversations on race because black people got "upset," or "too emotional." Yes, white people get emotional in other settings, and they're emotional in those settings even if they don't think they're dispalying that, but those other settings aren't the ones that the post is about.

My original impetus, from a long ways back in a book I no longer have, was bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress, where she writes about the dominant mode of discourse within classrooms, and the way it favors white middle-class modes of communication, and disallows other modes, thereby privileging those from white middle-class backgrounds, and to a somewhat lesser extent, those from black middle-class backgrounds, over both black and white students from working-class and/or rural backgrounds (though in different ways for each group). Asian backgrounds of various sorts would also be disadvantaged in this setting, in a rather opposite way, if an "international" student is from an East Asian educational setting, where respect for a teacher means carefully avoiding their eyes and hardly saying a word of your own in class. Students are expected to discuss, but to do so calmly, rationally, with a minimum of swearing and what looks to middle-class whites like personal "confrontation."

I hope this helps you see more clearly what I've been trying to get at. There are dominant modes of accceptable discourse for various settings, and those raised with different conversational proclivities either have to learn them, or fare less well in the conversation.

jw wrote:

It isn't the point if whites are always racially conscious as realizing themselves as white, but they clearly know who belongs "to them" and who "is the other" and whites are working and thinking in terms of collective, as 'covert' as this may be and they don't need mass-ralleys to do so.

It may not be your point, but it is my point. Again, I'm not denying that whites have collective modes of power. I do think it's significant that they're not marked and name as such, AS "white" collective power. Don't you think they should be? Don't you think that fewer whites would participate if the racist white solidarity of such collectivities was marked AS "white," instead of as the norm, as the supposedly rational, supposedly "all-American" way?

as a collective whites deny reality and as a global collective whites will fall. White supremacy will be combatted but not thanks to 'good will' of white people but due to political and probably also economical necessity.

Oh, I did not know that you had tried to find a YouTube or Google video version, although it makes a lot of sense now that you would, to avoid the commercials. I was just frustrated, because I've seen similar "This video is not accessible in your area because you are not in the United States" messages in place of videos posted on blogs. Anyway, I could not find the video either, but I found the transcript.

Sorry about ending that paragraph of my comment with "I do not think [...]" without an explanation. I hate it when other people write like that, so I shouldn't be a hypocrite. It was just laziness on my part.

I do not think that restraining oneself is particularly white in terms of culture, because I find that many Asian cultures are ascetic: Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, etc. For older and conservative ethnic minorities, hedonism is perceived to be a "white" thing. They think that openness about sexuality, casual sex, homosexuality, and transgenderism are "white culture". Furthermore, many of them think that gays, lesbians, and/or transgender people in non-white countries exist due to Western influence. (Homosexuality and transgenderism are not really related to casual sex except with respect to stereotypes, but all these transgressions of sex-related taboos are perceived as "white" or "Western" culture.)

I'm not an older and conservative ethnic minority, but I do think that white people on average are less culturally ascetic are more culturally 'hedonistic' than non-whites. I think it was Nietzsche who commented about how in the post-Christian reactionary culture, people felt pressured to enjoy themselves.

The Cruel Secretary has a post called "What Color is Your Orgasm?" at Racialicious. One of the important points she mentions is that African Americans' sexual conservatism comes partly from sexualized racial stereotypes. atlasien comments about how she had to drop the "sex-positive" self-descriptor because of stereotypes about Asian female sexuality. I think that non-white minorities' racial self-consciousness and our knee-jerk reaction to avoid confirming stereotypes about our race is an important factor in how we are inhibited compared to whites. Whites can be themselves because they see themselves and other whites as individuals, but non-whites, when in the presence of people outside their ethnic group, are worried about creating or confirming stereotypes about their ethnic group. There is a long history of trying to degrade other ethnic groups by claiming that they are more sexual (and this applies even to non-Western cultures), so in Western culture, the oppressed minority groups are perceived to be more sexual. This, in turn, makes the members of the racialized minority groups more sexually inhibited, to avoid confirming stereotypes.

Of course, there are also cultural roots to the sexual inhibitions of non-whites (which I talked about and referred to as 'ascetism'), but there is also a racial self-consciousness element to it which combines with stereotypes of the sexuality of racialized peoples.

I have not read Takaki (I should), but from your description, it seems like he is explaining the history of the self-restraining and Puritanical aspects of American morality. It makes sense, but does he really make the point that this is specifically culturally Western or white, as opposed to the extremity coming from the privileged group's fear of and need to mentally distinguish themselves from racialized people? If it is the latter, then the whites would just be setting the standard higher for racialized people, as racialized people would have to behave even more restrained than that to be perceived as equally 'civilized' as whites. Also, perhaps this particular history is about American morality rather than Western morality.

RE: "Using the words God, and damn, and America in the same sentence is already "strikingly unfamiliar" to white Americans, if not, perhaps, to most black Americans..."

There's a PEW survey which found:

"A clear majority of whites (58%)who heard about Rev. Wright's sermons say they were personally offended by what he said, while most blacks who heard about his sermons (64%) say they were not offended."

Also, 63% of Obama supporters said they were not offended while 33% said they were.

Wow you're white? I couldn't believe it, well honestly I hate to say it but my initial thought was, "This sounds too intelligent to have been written by a black guy." My story is long and very sad.

In a nutshell I'm a black female that looks and acts mixed, acts ‘white’ and yes I had to purposely do that. I was taught and learned from an early age that blacks were inferior to whites, especially black men. I was taught to strive to date and marry a handsome white man. So of course you can imagine the self hate I have had to harbor and displace for my entire life. I escaped it by immersing myself into the white world and passing. If you are black you are expected to listen to black music, watch black movies, etc. I was also rejected by both races in school because of how I looked. I’ve lowered my Cognitive Dissonance by surrounding myself around white people and thinking of myself as white.

I even went as far as to date an open racist, being that he uses the N word and complains about minorities all of the time around me. I even got to agreeing with him about the black race being a wreck, totally ignoring the fact that I completely understood why. Being light skinned and not looking black at all got me more men from different cultures. Every man looks down on black women when it comes to dating, Hispanics, Asians, etc. any black women will tell you that she is always the last on the list the darker she is. Black women get a bad rap and get treated pretty badly by everyone. You never know what movies you might like that is white will lash out against blacks tomorrow. I notice that doesn’t stop whites from watching their shows and movies. I wonder how many black people still watch Charlie Seen. I guess most didn’t in the first place. Lol. And then some whites jump on blacks about one case of racism they show, it’s all over the news. It’s like blaming a dog for attacking a master when the master has abused it for so long.

Of course I have had people not liking me because I wasn’t black enough and as if I had betrayed my race. I guess maybe I have in a way, but I’m changing my ways just like a white person had to and my boyfriend is. We are learning from each other, I know how he feels superior to me and I feel inferior deep down inside to whites like most black people do. Of course both sides will usually deny feeling superior and inferior, but you can always tell. If anything they show no interest in racial issues or have no problem laughing at black jokes. You can’t help but feel angry and bitter when everything you watch on TV has a beautiful blonde with long blonde hair and all you have is short nappy hair. It’s not easy feeling like the least attractive and desired race of women in the world and having that reinforced that no one wants to see people like you on tv.

It doesn’t help when the media only places mixed black women on camera or mixed looking black women on camera. Then they have the nerve to brag about the first ‘black’ woman to win an Oscar about Halle Berry who is mixed. And that Barack Obama is the first ‘black’ man to be President. I guess the Jim Crow Laws are still in effect… One black parent and one white parent yet you are still black. Not to mention that you are constantly told to get over it, see men of your own race dating white women once they get rich and famous. We here constant jokes about your race even by whites who think they ‘get’ you yet constantly still treating you as if you were different. Yet people keep telling you to get over it and that you have the same chance to make it as anyone nowadays despite proof that that isn’t the case with studies done on racism today. I have yet to see equality, one black woman or man here or then in a place of success doesn’t mean that the entire race can be there too. Especially when the one that is there receives so much hate from so many others.